[recycled material - first appeared here]
Three recent, separate studies have illustrated how chemicals and chemical levels can influence thoughts, feelings, behavior: human psychology. In two of the studies, the chemicals were endogenous, or internally produced, in the third, exogenous.
1) Dopamine and pleasure.
The first sentence to the news release tells it:
Enhancing the effects of the brain chemical dopamine influences how people make life choices by affecting expectations of pleasure, according to new research from the UCL Institute of Neurology. [bold added][source]
Drugs that influence dopamine levels in the brain include cocaine, nicotine, and amphetamines. Caffeine, too.
2) Carbon dioxide and fear.
Yes, your body creates carbon dioxide. Oxygen comes in through the lungs, carbon dioxide out. Higher levels of carbon dioxide have been found to trigger fear and anxiety.
A new study by University of Iowa researchers shows that carbon dioxide increases brain acidity, which in turn activates a brain protein that plays an important role in fear and anxiety behavior. [source]
Like the above on pleasure, this finding on fear has important mental health implications.
[T]he study team, including first author Adam Ziemann, M.D., Ph.D., found that making brain tissue less acidic (raising brain pH) blunted fear behavior produced by carbon dioxide and reduced learned fear. [bold added]
This is your brain; this is your brain with an altered pH. This is your emotional state and behavior; this is your emotional state and behavior with acidic brain tissue.
3) Phthalates and effeminate play.
Phthalates do not naturally occur in the human body. They are used by industry to soften plastics. When humans are exposed to these the can be absorbed. And when in a mother's body, the can influence the developing fetus.
Phthalates are also found in vinyl and plastic tubing, household products, and many personal care products such as soaps and lotions. Phthalates are becoming more controversial as scientific research increasingly associates them with genital defects, metabolic abnormalities, and reduced testosterone in babies and adults. [source]
The news release containing the above information reported this very interesting finding:
In Swan's study, higher concentrations of metabolites of two phthalates, di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), and dibutyl phthalate (DBP), were associated with less male-typical behavior in boys on a standard play questionnaire....Girls' play behavior was not associated with phthalate levels in their mothers, the study concluded.
Phthalates have previously been recognized as anti-androgenic compounds: they act against or disrupt the male hormones. How could the mothers' exposure to this chemical affect their boys' style of play?
Swan hypothesized that phthalates may lower fetal testosterone production during a critical window of development – somewhere within eight to 24 weeks gestation, when the testes begin to function – thereby altering brain sexual differentiation. [bold added]
Who knew that studying chemistry in school could aid your understanding of human psychology? We now know better.
Are men not from Mars, but the hardware department of Sears, women from apparel?
Scratch that.
Is the average man from the hardware department, the average woman from apparel?
Nope, that won't do either. One more try:
Is the average, 21st century, middle-class American man from hardware, the average, 21st century, middle-class American woman from apparel?
If so, what the hell was I doing in lawn and garden this weekend?
More seriously now, two recent studies have looked into gender differences. One found a difference. The other questioned a gender difference that may not be as big or innate as presupposed.
For the gender difference discovered, a study of the experimental psychology sort found that men are . . . more sexually hopeful (my words) than females. Or were they more deluded? Lust-impaired?
The research involved 96 male 103 female undergraduates, who were put through a "speed-meeting" exercise -- talking for three minutes to each of five potential opposite-sex mates....
The results: Men looking for a quick hookup were more likely to overestimate the women's desire for them....
The more attractive the woman was to the man, the more likely he was to overestimate her interest. And women tended to underestimate men's desire. [emphases added; source]
Men. Those swine. Horny toads. Poor hyper-desirous bastards. At least sexually speaking.
And women. Dare I say they can be clueless?
On another front, the front that has men being mathematicians par excellant, at least when it comes to the leading edge of the gender average bell curve, one study purports that the male "natural" mathematical endowment may have been artificially enhanced by bad science.
Wisconsin researchers linked differences in math performance to social and cultural factors.
The new study, by Mertz and Jonathan Kane, a professor of mathematical and computer sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, was published today (Dec. 12, 2011) in Notices of the American Mathematical Society. The study looked at data from 86 countries, which the authors used to test the "greater male variability hypothesis" famously expounded in 2005 by Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard, as the primary reason for the scarcity of outstanding women mathematicians.
That hypothesis holds that males diverge more from the mean at both ends of the spectrum and, hence, are more represented in the highest-performing sector. But, using the international data, the Wisconsin authors observed that greater male variation in math achievement is not present in some countries, and is mostly due to boys with low scores in some other countries, indicating that it relates much more to culture than to biology. [emphasis added; source]
Now what to think? In the least we should conclude that simplistic proclamations are likely bogus.
Beyond that, I don't know. But if you want to discuss it, you'll find me shopping for a new socket wrench.
A new study -- of the experimental psychological sort -- suggests that an important element to gender inequality in the state house and board room may be self-confidence. As the news release title and subtitle tell it:
Men's honest overconfidence may lead to male domination in the C-suite
Study finds that gender differences in overconfidence concerning individual past performance explains a significant proportion of the lack of female leadership in organizations
If this is the case, how might society attempt to resolve the inequality? Personally, I'm not a fan of quotas and any similar type of affirmative action. When possible, I think attempting to level the proverbial playing field is a better approach. The drawback to this approach is it tends to be more complex and far from a quick fix.
In light of the above finding, to achieve a 'natural' equality, should we attempt to foster overconfidence in women? That doesn't seem right. Do we instead try to beat some of the confidence out of men? What to do?
You have likely heard the claim that men think about sex roughly every 3 nanoseconds. Or something nearly as extreme. When I first heard it my immediate response was, "Really?" And then I secretly wondered what was wrong with me. I was apparently made of different stuff than other men. And I didn't measure up. Shoot, whole hours could go by without my thinking about sex. Was I running a quart low on testosterone?
New research out of Ohio State University has generated a more likely statistic. On average, college age men (an important point) think about sex roughly 19 times . . . per day. Not quite as obsessed or sex-crazed. Maybe it is a lot, but it certainly is a lot less than the stereotype portrayed.
However, even at this lesser number, the gender gap remained. College-age women thought about sex roughly 10 times per day.
Interesting.
Another interesting discovery was that there was also a gender gap, though a smaller one, when it came to thoughts about other biological drives: While men thought about food 18 times per day, women did 15 times. For sleep it was 11 times for men, about 8.5 for women.
Men -- those animals. So concerned with their basic drives. Yet women are close behind. Women -- those animals.
Of course, an important question is, "What constituted a thought about sex?" Full intercourse? Mere lust?
Fortunately, the news release disclosed this bit of information:
a thought about any aspect of sex: sexual activity of any kind, fantasies and erotic images, sexual memories and any arousing stimuli.
Hmm. Arousing stimuli? So if a man or woman leans against a washing machine while reaching for the detergent--would any below-the-belt 'tingle' count as a "thought about sex"?
My guess is that the numbers may have been higher had the students monitored their thoughts at Miami Beach during spring break.
I have long suspected that much of any genetic influence on a gender gap in an academic/occupational field might be as much or more about innate interest in a type of activity as it is about innate ability. A new psychological theory (supported by some research, so it is more than idle speculation) supports that hunch.
The press release, Technical aptitude: Do women score lower because they just aren't interested? contains these nuggets:
Smart people, researchers have found, are able to learn the requirements of any job if they are motivated to. And research shows that men and women do not differ, on average, in general intelligence.
Frank Schmidt, author of the paper outlining the theory . . .
posits that this difference stems from sex differences in interest in technical pursuits, which leads people to acquire technical experience, which in turn increases technical aptitude scores.
Excellence follows interests by way of learning experiences. Of course, culture can play a role in how a field is presented and taught,making it more interesting to one gender or another. Social factors can also determine how accessible and attractive types of learning experiences are to one sex or the other. Engineering, nursing, etc. If females are interested, they will gain experience and acquire aptitude. If males are interested, ditto. Those uninterested will not, or at least not as much.
Of course, allow me to add, "it seems" & "in general." Greater confidence in the proposed relationship between variables awaits further research.
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